Three exploratory journeys into the still unknown expanses of the Pacific Ocean made the British navigator and explorer James Cook (1728–1779) famous. The lands he discovered included Hawaii. He was the first to map New Zealand, Australia and the island world of the South Seas. His voyages not only gave new impulses to navigation, astronomy, natural history and art in the age of the Enlightenment, but also enriched the science of ethnology. On Cook’s third voyage a painter with Swiss roots was also on board: John Webber, the son of a sculptor from Bern by the name of Wäber who had emigrated to England. Bern is indebted to John Webber for one of the world’s most prestigious collections of ethnographic artefacts, including the precious feather cloak of a Hawaiian chieftain. This exhibition will for the first time combine artefacts from the permanent collection of Bern’s Historisches Museum with important loans from all over the world and thus bring together the most valuable objects exemplifying Pacific cultures brought back by Cook’s expeditions.

The exhibition tells the story of James Cook’s voyages through some 500 exhibits. Alongside the ethnographic exhibits, magnificent paintings and drawings by the expedition painters Sydney Parkinson, William Hodges and John Webber document the events and capture in an impressive way the euphoria and at the same time the scientific curiosity, the thirst for knowledge, that distinguished the explorer’s reactions to the exotic sceneries of the South Seas. Model ships, original nautical charts and navigational instruments bring back Cook’s voyages in a fascinating and vivid way.

An exhibition held in cooperation with the “Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle” of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn (28. 8. 2009 – 10. 1. 2010) and the Kunsthistorisches Museum – Museum für Völkerkunde, Vienna (March to July 2010)